Yuugi Always
by Anzu Fan
Summary: Oneshot.  The emptiness was the worst thing for Yuugi.  The idea that whenever he called, whenever his voice echoed back from the edges of his mind, there was no answer.  There was only emptiness...


Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-Gi-Oh, Yami would not have gone on to the afterlife and there would have been several more adventures. As it is…nope.

Author's Note: Okay, I realize there are probably several versions of this; Yami's gone, Yuugi's upset, Anzu helps him. I'm just trying my hand at something new, okay? And a lot of those stories were really great, and act as inspiration, so I'm trying to write a version…okay? I really like this kind of story, and I'm experimenting. Well, now that that's out of the way…

Rated: Uh…K, I guess…might be K+ for mention of character death…

Yami and Yuugi are meant to have a brotherly relationship in this. Not intended to be puzzleshipping.

I own NOTHING. Just want to clear that. Might be peachshipping implied…you can view it as friendship, though, that's what was intended…

One-shot

**Yuugi…****Always**

The shop's the same. The games overflowing against the wall are stacked crookedly, as though they're going to fall and smack you in the head when you walk in. The glass counter has fingerprint smudges from where people examine the antiques inside, breathing and steaming all over the glass. There's dust and smudge marks where boxes and crates were once laid. Nothing's out of place, everything still seems…normal.

But it didn't…_sound _normal, didn't sound _right_.

There was no sound of a broom rustling and scratching over the floor, or a wet cloth scrubbing the windows, or grunts as an elderly man attempted to lift boxes entirely too heavy for his old back to bear.

There was no television on, no radio, not even a sigh or breath. It seemed very strange to him that there was no sound in the kitchen.

Always, there had been sound in the kitchen. Food crackling as it fried and sizzled, an abandoned radio playing its scratchy, out of date tunes, even a whistle to some vacant song his Grandpa only half-knew the words to.

Sometimes, he'd even heard a soft step against the tile as some lean, silent being examined everything, trying to comprehend the "tee-vee," or the "mi-crow-wave." Struggling to understand all these modern inventions and items he, Yuugi, had fruitlessly attempted to explain.

Atem had not belonged to this time. He wasn't of this time, of this age. It was simple enough to understand, and yet…not simple at all. He belonged with them, but out of their time. He belonged with a chance at another life. He belonged in the afterlife.

He belonged with them. But he didn't.

Yuugi vaguely heard a distant chime from the clock. He shook his head. "Grandpa, are you here?" he called. The slight, confident voice he'd gained since housing the spirit of the pharaoh had diminished to almost nothing. It was a soft voice now, as it had been before.

There was no answer. Stepping forth on the clean, tile floor, Yuugi found the sticky note pasted to the counter.

"Be back in an hour. Went to store."

Grandpa had been leaving a lot lately. Perhaps he just needed to leave, to think.

Yuugi roamed the house, finally entering the kitchen. Finding a butter knife, he turned on the radio and took a slice of bread out of the breadbox, spreading jam across it.

He only turned on the radio for noise, any more.

It was too quiet with Atem gone. Too quiet without his thundering, intelligent, confident tones, too quiet without his constant questions on the modern world. His presence had always been reverberating, ringing in the back of his head, sometimes – such as when he slept – a silver bell, and in his rage, a roar, some wild animal's voice loosed. But it was never gone. Never absolutely gone.

Even with the Orichalcos. Yami – Atem, he reasoned after a moment – had never been truly alone. In a way, yes, but Yuugi could still feel his haunting, desolate presence, felt the guilt and anguish gnawing away inside. It had been faint, but he'd felt the despair…

Now, the corners of his mind were dark. His conscious shrank away from the empty corners, terrified of the cold, cold dark. There was only nothingness, emptiness, echoing, reiterating words.

Sometimes, Yuugi felt his mind screaming for Atem, petrified of the echoing banshee howls, the siren wails that echoed back. Atem did not answer. He _could not_ answer.

Yuugi had looked up to Yami. Yami was strong, confident, bold, daring. He was true and whole and real. He was courage and defiance, the chin held high when striding into an executioner's grasp.

Yami was a guardian. Yami was a friend.

Yami was a brother.

Yuugi had always, however dimly, felt his presence. He was always his brother, the elder brother, the kind that showed the little brother how to grow up, how to live. Yami's protectiveness and strength was a beacon in the dark, keeping him from slipping away. Sometimes, he felt his terror dragging and pulling him, screaming into the dark, when he felt he couldn't hold on in these insane adventures. And he always felt a hand – a brother's hand – pulling him away from the dark, keeping him safe, defiantly challenging anything that would touch him, anyone that would harm one hair on his little brother's head.

Now, the warm strength, the serene, warm presence was gone, like a candle snuffed out with congealed, cold wax.

It was the emptiness that scared him. The coldness, the lack of flickering life. It scared him. It scared him more than Dartz, more than Bakura, more than Zorc. It scared him like nothing ever had, the idea that he would never again speak to Yami, his friend, his brother.

Yuugi realized, landing on Earth with a bump, that he'd nearly emptied the jar of jam, spreading it without thinking. The jam was almost an inch deep on the bread, dripping and sticky.

The bell to the game shop rang. Putting down the jam-sodden bread, Yuugi ran back through the house.

Pulling open the door, Yuugi merely blinked, before his hesitant voice box agreed to form words. "A-Anzu?"

"Hey Yuugi," she said quietly, voice lacking any tom boyishness whatsoever. She had never seemed more reserved, more quiet, than right at that moment. "I came by to see you. How are you feeling?"

Yuugi perused her eyes carefully, in that electric, somewhat eerie way only he could. They were dry, her eyes quite normal, the whites being white. Her face seemed a little drawn, but that was normal for now.

She held up a can. "I brought some snacks. I figured Grandpa had gone on one of those binges where all he'll drink is tea."

Yuugi gazed up at her. He somehow noticed he didn't have to look up quite so much as three short years ago. And she had called his grandfather 'Grandpa.' She'd never said that before. "Yeah. Yeah, he has."

"Yeah. He does that when he's upset, doesn't he?"

Yuugi could only nod.

"Can I come in?" Anzu's voice was flat, even tired. Yuugi realized he'd never said if he were alright or not.

"…Of course." He pulled the door open wider.

"Thanks Yuugi." She stepped inside, taking the door gently from his hands and closing it behind her. She was wearing her school uniform, and the bow was rumpled. He heard a faint jingling sound, chinking of metal on metal.

Anzu immediately let go of the door to clutch at the pendant, the cartouche, around her neck. Her fingers froze, and she slid the door shut.

Yuugi's lips did not want to form words, but he forced them. "…You miss him too…don't you?"

Anzu turned to look at him again, but it was not a weepy Anzu he faced. It was Anzu with her face set, eyes brazen and hard, but still soft as she looked at his eyes. "Yes. But none of us miss him like you do."

Yuugi watched her without saying anything, yet again. Anzu put down the small bag and the colas, the street outside the game shop door vacant and deserted.

Yuugi watched her still, and she looked at him. "Yuugi…asking you if you're alright…would be kind of stupid, wouldn't it?"

He did not answer. Anzu's eyes wandered over him, from the drawn features, the eyes with lines below them, the quivering fingers, the hollowness of his face. His baby features were strangling in the cold, lonely void he hovered in, day in and day out. "Yuugi…if you need someone to talk to…" she murmured, taking his cold hands in hers.

Raising those large, dewy, childish eyes, Yuugi did not seem any older than the days of elementary school, than when he'd been shoved off the playground swing set, than when he'd solved the Puzzle. He was no older, no different, no wiser or colder. But staring at her, he saw much had changed.

Anzu was a young woman. She was no little girl, throwing her head back and laughing at the pitiful bullies on the playground, no tomboy, and she was not strong. Her eyes had once looked at him, bright, bossy, curious. Now they seemed softer, gentler, the lashes longer. But she gazed at him the same way as ever.

Yuugi didn't quite comprehend how it happened. At one moment he was standing there, trembling as though on the edge of a cliff, and then he'd collapsed against her, small body wracked with sudden jerks.

Anzu's eyes widened, but returned his clumsy, wet hug.

"…I-It's the emptiness…that scares me th-the most…" he whispered, muffled, hot breath against her collar. "I-I'm so afraid things will be like before…when-when he wasn't-wasn't around…I'm scared, I _terrified_, Anzu. I-I made friends when he came…am I going to lose them now? Please, I don't want that…I can't take that…"

Her bow was getting soaked. It wasn't the silent crying she'd seen him do; it was full on crying, the real crying, the pain and hurt and brokenness coming out in a flood. Hot flashes and gasps of breath came against her neck, water against her skin. His arms were around her waist, not strongly or consolingly, but desperately, as though she was the only thing keeping him from plummeting into the dark. She felt his hands clasped at the small of her back, pressed so tightly against her that a crowbar would never pry him off.

Anzu pulled him closer. "I know…I know…" she whispered foolishly, knowing full well she _didn't_ know. She didn't know what his enormous, tender heart was feeling as it was pulled and ripped in every direction. Fumblingly, she rubbed his back, hands shaking at the tremors running through his body, through the bones and delicate sinews.

"Yuugi…you'll never lose us." Her voice whispered, pathetically. "You'll always have Jonouchi…and Honda. You'll always have Ryo and Otogi. You'll always have Kaiba, Mokuba, Rebecca, and all the others. We won't leave. We'll never leave. Even he'll never leave you. You know that, Yuugi."

Slowly, Yuugi rubbed his face against her neck. Pulling away, still clasped against her, Yuugi turned his face to hers. Eyes red, face pink and pale, he whispered, "And…I'll have you…won't I?"

Anzu stared at him, as though she were really seeing him for the first time. She moved her hands away from his back, but he clutched her tighter. Gently, like he would break, she cupped his face in her hands. More tears leaked from his eyes, but she rubbed her slender, feminine fingers, wiping them away, barely touching his flesh.

"Yuugi…always."

Without another word, she pulled him against her, and for a while they were silent.

"Thank you…Anzu…"

"...I wish I could help."

Yuugi managed to look up at her again, and his watery, exhausted face managed the small, shy smile he'd always contained. "You already have."

Anzu rubbed his back once more, before saying quietly, "So…do I have to carry the comfort food all the way back home?"

Yuugi rubbed his face against her neck, in a 'no' fashion.

"Are we going to stand this way until the door sends me flying?"

His head moved up and down.

Despite the dark, despite the tears still drying cold on her shirt, Anzu cocked an eyebrow. "Don't count on it." Yuugi managed to look up at her, an actual smile on his face.

"I tried, didn't I?"

Anzu shook her head. "C'mon, let's break out the chips."

_Often, Yuugi felt that Yami was an older brother to him. He was strong, confident, and he was there. And his mind felt empty without him. But whenever the emptiness became too great…_

_Anzu did not fill the void…but it helped._

_And it kept him from the brink of the abyss._

_"I'll have you…won't I…?"_

_"Yuugi…always."_

000

Well…that was different. Still, I needed to write. And yes, it might be a bit cliché, but throw me a bone here…school's eating all my time up. Remember, constructive criticism is _niiiice_…but flames are bad. Thanks for reading!


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